<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>before I be your dog (baby please don't go) by jvo_taiski</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28227357">before I be your dog (baby please don't go)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/jvo_taiski/pseuds/jvo_taiski'>jvo_taiski</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>make you walk alone [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Outsiders (1983), The Outsiders - All Media Types, The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mild Gore, Morning After, Pining, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, a lot of it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:54:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,264</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28227357</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/jvo_taiski/pseuds/jvo_taiski</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> but he’s Tim Shepard and you’re Dallas Winston and you’re crash-and-burn, push-and-shove, two sides of the same godforsaken coin— </i>
</p><p>Dallas and Tim, and why they are what they are.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tim Shepard/Dallas Winston</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>make you walk alone [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2097945</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>before I be your dog (baby please don't go)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>[edit 14/03/2021: minor errors that were pissing me off]</p><p>most warnings in the tags but again to be safe:<br/>mild gore<br/>portrayal of an unhealthy relationship dynamic<br/>reference of unhealthy coping mechanisms<br/>reference of sexual acts of a violent nature (consensual but not negotiated)</p><p>here you go,, this is what happens when i'm hit with a random idea in maths class</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>That’s Tim Shepard lying next to you. He’s not awake yet, so you sit up very carefully, sheet sliding away from your chest, to just take it all in.</p><p>You never expected to wake up next to Tim Shepard, not in a million years and never in your short life—hell, if the guy opens his eyes now he’ll probably laugh at you for being soft and kick you out of his bed before you can get a word in, and you’ll cuss him out, call him easy for not kicking you out sooner, and then you’ll end up in another fight and it’s not even 9am yet. It’s alright; it’s what you’re used to and that’s just how you are.</p><p>He’s tanned bronze and seems to glow against the bedsheets in the early morning light, looking ethereal and oddly serene. It’s strangely quiet out—but then again, it’s a Sunday morning. You’ve never been near a church in your life and you know damn well that Tim never set foot in the place after his mama left him with two kid-siblings to provide for, but hell, if you were inclined to feel sentimental, you could’ve thought that he looked almost angelic or some shit—his usually greased-back curls are fanned around his face like a bastardised kind of halo, soft and dark. Even the jagged scar that runs from his temple all the way down the corner of his mouth looks less jarring, less ugly in the soft white light. You try not to think too much about wanting to touch.</p><p>He got that scar after mouthing off to a tramp a couple years back, and if even <em>you </em>knew that was fucking dumb, then, well. You’re pretty sure Tim damn well knew it too, but Tim is Tim and he probably found it fun getting his face cut open, split-bloody, red dripping steady and heavy onto the grey sidewalks. It was around about the time his mama finally packed up and left, so it wasn’t too surprising. You can’t forget the ugly look on his face, lips pulled back in a sneer and blood gushing from the side of his face, with a piece of glass still wedged in his cheek when he pulled his switchblade on the tramp.</p><p>You’ve seen worse than dead bodies on New York streets but the memory of stitching Tim’s face up afterwards with a needle from Angela’s sewing kit, sterilised with stolen whiskey and the rest swallowed as an anaesthetic, still leaves a sour taste in your mouth. You could see his teeth through his cheek, for Christ’s sake, and fishing for the tiny bits of glass lodged in there only made it worse—they ripped apart just as much flesh coming out as they did going in, glinting ice-white like diamonds and dripping in red as you let them clatter onto the bedside table, although that might’ve just been because your hands were shaking so bad. You blamed it on one too many cigarettes. Tim saw through the lie but he kept his mouth shut for once and his teeth gritted when you stitched up the side of his face with jagged hitches, praying to whatever cruel god that it wouldn’t get infected.</p><p>It did leave him with one tough-looking scar, though, and he still carries it with pride—says that it wouldn’t have looked half as good if you hadn’t done such a shit job of patching it up. You told him <em>you’re welcome</em>, and offered to give him a matching one on the other side.</p><p>Curly couldn’t look him straight in the eye for months after that and little children ran away from him on the streets, which was kind of funny—but Tim is one of those guys that little kids run away from anyway, with or without an ugly-ass line of mangled flesh down the side of his face. Ponyboy Curtis says he looks like a panther, hungry and lean with a kind of glint in his eyes that lures you in, dares you to fucking try taking him on. It’s shifty and restless and calculating and every inch dangerous, irises a deceiving dark blue that hooks you in and traps you there, like a whirlpool or the deep sea, and pupils glinting black like coals.</p><p>He’s not like you; he doesn’t go looking for trouble—he draws trouble to him like a moth to open flame and he welcomes it with a smile when it inevitably finds him. Hell, it’s what brought <em>you </em>to him in the first place, and what kept you coming back time and time again. You think he might like it.</p><p>You watch as he sighs a little and his mouth falls open, showing the little glint of his one silver incisor on the right-hand side. It’s surreal, seeing him so vulnerable. You swallow, but otherwise don’t move—that silver tooth looks deceptively innocent in the silence of a Sunday morning. Tim doesn’t smile much, so normally you’d never see it. Most people with any kind of self-preservation live their lives hoping they’ll never see that silver tooth of Tim’s, shining clean and smooth and blinding in the night, like a wolf’s eye reflecting the moon—because if Tim’s looking at you, and Tim’s smiling, then you know you haven’t got a chance. All it means to you is that you do everything you can to catch a glimpse of that little moonlight-glint and fuck, once you’ve survived it the first time, it’s like a drug; it hits you harder than any shot of smack could.</p><p>And sweet Jesus, seeing that familiar shine of silver so close to your cock last night was both the most scared and the most exhilarated you’ve ever been.</p><p>He looks positively angelic now, a tiny crease between his dark eyebrows and a small pout on his face as he sighs again and his eyelids flutter. His arm shifts a little, reaching out and fingers splayed over the sheets, and if you didn’t know any better you might have said that he was reaching for you.</p><p>Hell, like this, you might have even wanted to stay.</p><p>It’s bullshit, of course, because Tim is a lot of things but steady sure as hell ain’t one of them. He’s like you in that way, your characters carved out of stone with hacksaws and hardened at a young age, both taught not to trust anyone but yourselves, and not even that half the time. You don’t think Tim is physically capable of loving anymore, he’s done such a good job of stamping it out. Not even Curly and Angela. You reckon he sees them kind of like you see the rest of the Curtis gang—he likes them, sure, but he can never love, and you admire him for that. It’s what ultimately makes him tougher than you, never mind that you can get lucky sometimes and manage to whip him in a fight.</p><p>You’re not half bad at it, the whole loving thing: you only ever loved three people in your life and the only thing they have in common is that they’ll all end up killing you one day. You can’t help it any more than you can help your body pumping blood, and you hate that part of yourself, but it’ll drive you to your early grave no matter what you try doing about it. Tim doesn’t have that problem—he shut down that part of his mind a long time ago and sometimes you hate him for it.</p><p>The first and only girl you ever loved was Sylvia, whether you ever want to admit it or not, and you didn’t know what to do with it so you bought her a necklace, which she wore while she fucked other men. You were surprised to find that it hurt, it fucking hurt, and it wasn’t just because you saw her as <em>yours</em>, it was because you let her take something in you and she tossed it onto the streets with one of her red-lipped smiles, completely indifferent. So you beat the tar out of her and that hurt too, and you’re pretty sure she laughed while you did it. If it was any other girl two-timing, you would have kept her around and thrown her about just for the kicks but it was Sylvia and her blood-red smile and it cut deep every time.</p><p>Then there’s Johnny, and dt took a while for it to creep up on you that he stood out from the others, took a while for you to realise you treated the kid any different, took seeing him beaten bloody on the ground for you to suspect you loved him like you’d love a kid brother. And hell, there ain’t nothing you can do about that, but at least he’s not out to kill you on purpose. If he does end up being the death of you, it’s gonna be because he gets his candy ass killed first.</p><p>And of course, there’s the man himself, Tim fucking Shepard.</p><p>You spent days as a kid annoying the fuck out of him just to get him to glance your way, and it worked for the both of you—you kept coming back and he kept letting you. It’s a dangerous game of push-and-shove, slowly killing each other with quick, bold slashes over an imaginary line that keeps getting tugged further back every time he cracks your ribs, every time you break his nose, every time you patch each other back up again before the sun comes up in the morning. It’s a vicious cycle of brutal violence and stolen moments of tenderness that keeps you on your knees and crawling back for the next shot of adrenaline, like a dog starving, for something else to make you feel like you’re still alive.</p><p>In a way, sharing rough kisses and trading messy handjobs in the dark was inevitable, and so was coming all over Tim Shepard’s wickedly smiling face. You can rag him all you want for that, call him your bitch or whatever, but you’re terrified that he’s figured it out. Only one of you is going to come out of this game alive, and it’s not going to be you. It’s hard to tell whether you hate knowing it or love it, probably a bit of both.</p><p>But right now, you’re not at each other’s throats and for some reason, you still want him with you, next to you, inside you, even. Maybe you’re getting tired. Maybe you accepted you were gonna die young a long time ago, just like he did, but it doesn’t change the fact that you still have stupidly weak moments where you feel so fucking tired of it all, when you’re too worn down even to hate. Normally, it’s an easy fix—drugs or sex or a good fight and as it happens, Tim’s got all three to offer. But it gets hollow after a while, makes you crave something from him that doesn’t even exist.</p><p>You look for trouble because it distracts you; he lets trouble come to him for the kicks. Two sides of one coin. Two of a kind. Too much bitterness and one way out.</p><p>Tim sighs softly in his sleep, curling his body towards you, and for once he looks his age, or younger, and doesn’t have that cold sneer that’s timeless in its cruelty. You and Tim, you’re built to burn bright like a red flare used as a weapon or a single gunshot to the sky. Volatile, but immortal while you live, indestructible until suddenly, you’re not.</p><p>You feel heavy as you resist the urge to close the inch between your fingers and just touch. You’d last even less time together, like two lit fuses making contact. You’d burn bright and rip each other apart, go out in smoke and flames. Maybe you’ll just take him and go, string him along for the ride—and you’d do it too, if he wasn’t always two steps ahead every single time.</p><p>In the end, he beats you to it as usual and his fingers ghost over yours, gripping loosely. Your heart just about slams its way straight out of your ribcage and you wonder if he’s actually awake, can’t decide whether you want him to be or not. There’s a beat’s pause and he doesn’t stir so you relax again.</p><p>Asleep, he’s actually kinda pretty. Not always, of course—you’ve seen him passed out hundreds of times, whether it’s when he’s reeling and wasted on the streets or snoring on the couch or even that one time the two of you got chucked in a cell together overnight. Normally, he still looks like he could kill you when knocked out—tense, restless. A panther or an alley cat. Mouth twisted bitterly and hands braced to his body, ready to spring in a second.</p><p>But he’s easy as the Sunday morning now, limbs loose and his calloused fingers still laced in yours, not like he’s holding you down, but more like you’re supposed to be there next to him. And he’d kill you if you were ever dumb enough to say it, but he really is kind of pretty like that, without all the tension, all the cruelty. His eyelashes are actually long enough to brush the tops of his cheekbones, but then again, they’re kinda high, angular. He’s got an angular face, an angular frame, all cutthroat edges and blades.</p><p>Tim’s not a big guy. Hell, his kid brother’s almost taller and he’s only 15—but Tim’s got something about him that has a sick kind of allure, a cold aura of danger that makes him stand a foot taller than everyone around him. He’s all lean, sinewy muscle, cat-like and efficient. And kind of small. Really kinda young, really kinda fragile and it’s not just because he’s only 5’9.</p><p>You startle a little when you hear a door opening down the hall and quiet footsteps—but it’s probably only Angela, because there’s no way Curly’s out of bed any time before 12. Angela still goes to church sometimes for whatever reason. It’s crossed your mind that she might like to believe there’s still something out there that isn’t this bastardised version of life that her twin brother cruises through and her older brother revels in, but she’s also a Shepard and Shepards are slippery. For all anyone knows, she whores herself out behind the pews.</p><p>You reach out a hesitant thumb out and gently stroke a circle on the back of Tim’s hand, almost surprised that it’s still smooth and warm and not, like, razor-blade cold or some shit—he’s still human, still built of blood and flesh. Tim, for sure, is going to hell, no doubt about that, and you’re gonna follow him straight in. You don’t think he cares whether there’s a god out there; he’s past the point of fearing eternal damnation. He’ll just prowl his way through and take it, find some way to slink into the shadows or even claw his way back up.</p><p>Angela turns on a tap somewhere and there’s a sudden clanking in the pipes, but Tim only holds onto your fingers tighter. You study his cracked nails and thin, sinewy arms, his lean chest and the sharp line of his jaw. Tim is not Sylvia. Tim is not a woman. Tim can still make you come so hard you want to sob.</p><p>You catch your breath as you study his face, the bend in his nose that you put there after breaking it for the second time, the dark purple bruise you sucked into the skin under his jaw, that full lower lip, swollen and red from fighting you, kissing you. You’re hit with the memory of what that wicked mouth looked like with your cock dangerously close, leaving trails of spit and pre-come across flushed cheeks with that feral silver glint of a tooth next to it, and those dark blue eyes meeting yours, never backing down.</p><p>Tim opens his eyes then, waking up gently, without fuss. His gaze meets yours, and for a second everything is perfect. He’s still got sleep-softness around him, eyes heavy-lidded and the traces of a lazy smile around his lips. You want to kiss him again, gentle, but he’s Tim Shepard and you’re Dallas Winston and you’re crash-and-burn, push-and-shove, two sides of the same godforsaken coin—</p><p>“Mornin’ doll,” you leer, squeezing his hand with no amount of gentleness. “Woke up and your pretty hand was gripping mine like I might’ve left you all alone. Don’t worry baby, I like it real good when you’re not runnin’ that cute little mouth of yours, like it even better when there’s somethin’ of mine shutting it up, if you know what I mean.”</p><p>“Say, Dal, that sounds an awful lot like what I said to your mother last week,” he grins, the cruel twist back in his lips. You miss the soft smile already.</p><p>So you shrug, but don’t let go of him. “That’s rich, Shep—least my mother left me for smack, not ‘cause she couldn’t stand the sight of my ugly face.”</p><p>He just smirks and squeezes the blood from your fingers, palm hot against yours, before leaning real close, so his breath tickles your cheek, warm, and purring, “Y’know, I reckon you like it. You like bein’ in my bed, like bein’ my bitch, ain’t that right, baby? There’s a reason you ain’t left an hour ago, why you ain’t smacked my face in an’ stolen my wallet when I was knocked out.”</p><p>And fuck, he knows, he’s fucking figured it out, probably did a long time ago. But you’re never admitting anything, not even when you can’t help sucking in a sharp breath, just like you can’t help a lot of things when it comes to Tim—and just like that, he’s got the upper hand again, always two steps ahead as he surges forwards with that cold, wicked smile and forces a choked moan out of you when he cups the front of your pants lewdly, in a way that’s just on the right side of painful, that makes your world narrow to <em>Tim</em>, and Tim alone.</p><p>He’s pinned you to the mattress and <em>fuck,</em> never mind, he’s fucking beautiful all the time, even when he’s cruel, and you’re gone, completely dead and gone for Tim Shepard’s sharp smile and, yeah, okay, this is it, you’re going to tear each other apart, burn each other to an inferno because you <em>want</em> Tim, you want him so badly it hurts, you want more from him than he’s ever going to give you—</p><p>But he’s Tim and you’re you and if that’s all you ever are, then you’ll take what you can get.</p><p>He kisses you then, and it’s shockingly tender, almost gentle. The softness of his lips hurts just as bad as the pressure in your groin and you dizzily think that fuck it, yeah, he’s going to kill you but at least you’ll love every second of it.</p><p>You gasp and he laughs. You don’t even try and protest when he takes fistfuls of your hair and tugs, baring your neck as he forces you around, down, and then there’s a heavy weight on your tongue, stretching your lips open and you think you might’ve sobbed, but the thumb that wipes away the stray tear is gentle.</p><p>“It’s alright baby, I got you. And I ain’t ever gonna go.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>title taken from the song Baby, Please Don't Go (I like the version by Them and Van Morrison) but I binge listened to Sunday Morning by the Velvet Underground while editing lol</p><p>Dallas and Tim have such a toxic dynamic but it's interesting to write. I'm not sure if I'm totally happy with this just because I'm not sure Dallas has ever thought about this shit for longer than a sentence but whatever, and i feel like the pacing/flow is off but i can't tell if that's because i've read it 3 times in a row. writing in 2nd person was a bit of an experiment for me, so lmk if that was okay. I'm thinking of doing a part 2 for this, but from Tim's POV? </p><p>as usual, kudos, comments and constructive criticism always appreciated!<br/>[it's a small series now]<br/>Jx</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>